


Royal Canadian University

by Watermelon Wolves (lookididthething)



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Copier Machines, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Ray is bad at feelings, Weddings, Wolves at weddings, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookididthething/pseuds/Watermelon%20Wolves
Summary: Standing in front of the First Municipal District (Chicago) Marriage and Civil Union Court and holding a Marriage License, Ray Kowalski found himself asking the one question you really want to ask sometime before a judge starts asking who takes whom as who’s… whatever: How the fuck did I end up here?





	Royal Canadian University

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suica/gifts).



_ Standing in front of the First Municipal District (Chicago) Marriage and Civil Union Court and holding a Marriage License, Ray Kowalski found himself asking the one question you really want to ask sometime before a judge starts asking who takes whom as who’s… whatever: How the fuck did I end up here? _

 

_ He hadn’t exactly been the kind of guy to picture his wedding day. But if he had been, he was sure it wouldn’t have looked anything like this. Well… Maybe it would have been at a courthouse. Maybe he could have even predicted he’d be a little fuzzy on how it’d all worked out the way it had. (He supposed he should count his blessings it wasn’t more of a 4:15AM in Las Vegas-kind of event. He at least knew WHOM he was tying the knot with.)   _

 

_ He would have assumed there would be fewer wolves. But it probably said a lot about Ray’s life that the number of wolves in the  First Municipal District (Chicago) Marriage and Civil Union Court (0.5) represented the normal number of wolves in his life on any given day.  _

 

_ The deaf lip-reading half-wolf Diefenbaker didn’t usually act as ring bearer. Sometimes he’d run notes from Fraser but that wasn’t the point. Rings and notes asking where Ray wanted to go for lunch were totally different. Somehow.  _

 

_ Dief was doing an admirable job, sitting with his ears at attention as he sat next to the rather uncomfortable looking judge and held their velvet ring box solemnly in his mouth.     _

 

_ It was that image that had Ray Kowalski finally break out into the cold sweat of a man who has just realized he is getting married. For a minute he stood there, frozen, mind asking over and over how this happened.  _

 

_ Then he looked at the man next to him and remembered.  _

 

-

 

“My name is Professor Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian University. I first came to Chicago on the trail of my father’s stolen research, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as adjunct instructor with the ethics department. And you are?” 

 

Stanley Raymond “Ray” Kowalski, the only person to ever  _ accidently _ acquire a bachelors, masters, and professorship, took a long gulp of ( _ coincidentally _ ) maple-themed coffee and continued to glare down the blinking red light on the front of the copy machine. He jabbed a finger at random buttons, earning himself an scream of digital protest. 

 

He waited until the familiar combination of dress shoe clad footsteps and canine accompaniment halted behind him.  

 

“Mornin, Fraze,” 

 

“Good morning, Ray.” Fraser sounded like he’d had better coffee than the campus shop syrup Ray was trying to finish as quickly as possible. (Screw him for trying something new, right? Now he was burning his tongue trying to finish it off before Diefenbaker ratted him out. ) 

 

Because he made friends with the kind of guy who made friends with the kind of wolf who ratted people out. Verbally. 

 

He tried kicking the printer. Dief took the opportunity and nearly knocked his legs out from under him as he darted in and started poking his nose into every one of the machines’ nooks and crannies. A habit that was not made okay by Fraser’s oft repeated explanation that he was “extremely good at unjamming misfed paper.” 

 

He wouldn’t have to put up with this if he prepped for his Wednesday morning class before Wednesday morning. Or if Fraser prepped his Friday night class at  _ any other time ever.  _ Like a  _ reasonable  _ person _. _

 

Ray was seconds away from declaring his class eco-friendly and making his thirty students share one copy between them. 

 

“Is everything alright, Ray?” 

 

Ray wasn’t sure if it was the implication that he hadn’t meant to jam the copier (possibly beyond any hope of repair) or the fact he couldn’t tell if Fraser meant to sounded sympathetic or extremely judgemental mocking. 

 

“You sure are here early today, Fraze!” he replied loudly, spilling maple coffee Dief as the wolf tried to yank a paper free from where it was sticking out of the copier. 

 

-

 

Between toweling off an indignant deaf lip-reading half-wolf, commandeering another copy machine, and scrambling to get to his class, Ray didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on his own question. But it stayed in his head, nagging at the back of his brain. Something about Fraser’s  (actually perfectly reasonable) answer didn’t settle his gut. Maybe Fraser was a morning person, and maybe Dief did demand they make a stop for doughnuts on the way… But his gut just wouldn’t accept it. 

 

And if there was one thing Ray trusted it was his gut. 

 

That was how he’d come to excel in academia, after all. Gut-instinct. 

 

Ray managed to restrain himself from literally kicking Fraser’s office door down. Instead, he figuratively kicked the door to Fraser’s office open, stepping (carefully) over Dief and around the tent and sleeping bag on the floor, before slamming a fist down on Fraser’s infuriatingly neat desk. He wanted answers for his not even remotely suspicious behavior! And he was going to get them damn it! 

“Fraser--” he started, pointing a finger at Fraser across the gas camping stove Fraser was using to warm up a pot of very arctic mammal-y smelling stew. He stopped. Fraser raised an eyebrow, indicating that Ray was free to keep yelling and not to mind him reaching for a bowl. 

 

-

 

The next thing Ray could remember saying was, “What do you mean you’re living here? You can’t live here”. 

 

“On the contrary,” Fraser had answered. “This part of Chicago is comfortably habitable. Pleasant even, at an annual average temperature of 49.65°F.  The Chipewyan people in the Yukon territory habitat an area with an average annual temperature of  −0.1 °C. When I was investigating the plagiarization of my father’s work at Whitehorse university-“ 

 

“Lots of places are more hospitable than the arctic circle, Fraser! I don’t care if you lived in a badger lodge or whatever while you were up North. This is Chicago. This is civilization. Don’t you have an apartment?” 

 

“Badger  **den** ,” Fraser corrected. “You are thinking of beavers. Or possibly muskrats.”

 

“Don’t you start,” Ray said, pointing a finger at Fraser’s chest in an inappropriately threatening way.

 

“The natural homes of badgers are underground. While beavers are usually found to build their homes on the side of these dams; the houses are called ‘lodges.’ “

 

For a solid minute Ray thought he might actually punch him. 

 

“Fraser,” he said. 

 

“Some people argue they are burrows.” 

 

Ray was definitely going to punch him. 

 

_ - _

 

_ Fraser’s dad had started crying as soon as the two of them had shown up in their suits. Even Dief was kind of sniffling around the ring box, although his tail was thumping wildly against the floor.  _

 

_ He’d told his parents. It’d felt a lot like admitting he’d fulfilled the unspoken fear they had of him marrying a hot foreigner for benefits. But they’d promised to come down that weekend for some kind of reception-brunch thing.  _

 

_ Meaning their “wedding” had already gotten wildly out of hand compared to the original ‘sign the paper/get you out of that tent’ plan.  _

 

_ Fraser was going over a handful of flashcards he’d produced from a pocket of his (far better fitting) suit and--And those were vows. Holy fuck. Ray hadn’t known they were writing fake vows for their fake wedding! _

 

_ \-   _

 

It wasn’t that Ray was mad Fraser had pitched a tent in the middle of his 36-square foot office. 

 

Hell, he wasn’t even mad that when confronted Fraser, the other man had decided to dispense semiaquatic rodent facts. (Which, as far as nervous ticks went, wasn’t all that weird in the context of Fraser as a person.)  

 

He was mad Fraser hadn’t mentioned it to him before now. Picked up a phone across the street from the smoldering remains of his apartment, you know?  Brought it up over coffee or lunch or during one of their walks with Dief across the campus--Ray was starting to understand why there were rumors about them floating around the undergrad classes--or while they drinking import beer and watching curling.  

 

The point was that Fraser had had ample time to bring it up. And he hadn’t. 

 

Ray blamed every crazy decision that came after on the feeling of betrayal.

 

After exhausting all ethical and unethical means of getting Fraser into an apartment, he decided that the way to get close to Fraser again was to get physically close to Fraser. By moving in! Moving in. 

 

The results of that line of investigation was as follows. 

 

“I looked into it. The university’ll only extend housing benefits to spouses and kids. Pretty Victorian, right?”

 

“Hm,”

 

“Woof.” 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Diefenbaker. That is not a practical solution. This is the ice-fishing accident all over again.”

 

“Aroo?”

 

“He would never agree to that.”

 

“Ruff ruff!”

 

“I do not think the ring will make that much of a difference.” 

 

“Yip.” 

 

“Hm.. In that case perhaps…  Yes. Yes! I think this just might just be the solution, Diefenbaker!“

 

Ray would have just gone ahead and agreed if Diefenbaker hadn’t apparently contributed to the idea. 

 

(He ended up agreeing anyways. So complaining that their marriage might have possibly been concocted by a wolf was sort of moot. )

 

_ - _

 

_ That was the really weird thing. He’d ended up agreeing. He’d rented a tux and worn the ring and showed up at the “traditional courthouse wedding” Fraser’s dad had insisted on. He’d even scribbled down a couple vow-like-things while everybody took a deep breath and made the final preparations you made before you married and/or got married.  _

 

_ They were terrible. But this was a fake marriage. (Right?) They were good enough for a fake marriage.  _

 

_ And yeah. Sure. Fraser had come over and smiled at him in a way that sort of implied that maybe Ray had missed a memo RE: how Canadians propose. And maybe his gut was telling him this was one of his less terrible ideas.  _

 

_ And sure, he was currently trying to avoid eye contact with Fraser while the Canadian professor fixed his tie. But even thinking about the weird, unconventional, and possibly not legal mess he was in... He’d gotten himself into it.  _

 

_ And maybe, just maybe,  Fraser didn’t have to sleep in a tent in his office for a month to get Ray to agree.  _

 

_End_


End file.
